One man's quest to exercise enough so that he can eat all of the good things that exist in the world

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U beauty

Over the last 12 months the Devon A-Z challenge has seen me eat and drink my way through almost the whole alphabet: from Ashridge cider through Blueberry Brothers, to Figgy’s and Georgie Porgy Puddings, to PortleBay popcorn and Quercus beer, and I am now only a few letters away from having the full set. Somewhat unsurprisingly it is the letters U, X and Z that had been causing me trouble. But today I get to cross another one of those off of my list.

After a sunny day spent on the moor with the ponies, sheep and members of my close family, we dropped just off of the moor to a place called Ullacombe Farm. Ullacombe Farm has taken the route that many enterprising farmers have taken and diversified, and they now offer a farm shop and cafe. It was the Ullacombe Farm cafe that we descended upon that lunchtime. Being a nice warm summer day we were able to sit outside at one of their, frankly enormous, tables and we were soon joined by an elderly couple. I have no idea who these people were but they seemed very friendly and, also, very keen to sit at our table. Well, it’s nice to be friendly.

As you would expect there are lots of Devon products to choose from and, this being Devon, some of us opted for a cream tea. If you can’t have a cream tea for lunch in Devon then where can you? Possibly Cornwall, I guess.

My brother, always wanting to push the boundaries, concocted his own (quite astonishing) sandwich and the nice people in the cafe were more than happy to oblige. There was certainly bacon in there. I think there was an entire field mushroom. Possibly some sausages. It was the size of a small doorstop (or possibly a small door) and looked pretty tasty if I’m honest. We had a couple of little ones with us (yes, that’s you Mrs RB) who made good use of the complementary play equipment. This being a farm, that involved two sit-on diggers.

So they entertained us, they fed us, they offered a pretty exciting range of local produce that could be bought and taken away. But clearly the most notable thing was that Ullacombe Farm cafe gave me something to put down under the letter U. And that means, ladies and gentlemen, that I have only two letters left before I complete my year-long jaunt through the food and drink of Devon.

Now X and Z are likely to require a bit of lateral thinking, possibly even a bit of cheating, but let’s leave that for another day.